Judge denies Donald Trump’s bid for mistrial in E. Jean Carroll rape case
Donald Trump has faced a major setback as the sensational civil rape case against former US president heats up.
A judge has denied a request for a mistrial by Donald Trump’s lawyer in what is a major setback for the former US president after journalist E. Jean Carroll brought a civil rape case against him.
Mr Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina requested the mistrial on Monday, citing “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” by the Manhattan federal court judge.
But Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the motion before the jury was brought into the courtroom on Monday morning.
The judge did not explain his decision, New York Post reports.
Mr Tacopina had said in the letter filed in court earlier that he would ask Judge Kaplan to “correct the record for each and every instance in which the court has mischaracterised the facts of this case to the jury” or provide him greater leeway in cross-examining Ms Carroll.
“Here, despite the fact trial testimony has been under way for only two days, the proceedings are already replete with numerous examples of [the] defendant’s unfair treatment by the court, most of which has been witnessed by the jury,” he wrote.
Ms Carroll, 79, testified last week that Trump, 76, raped her in the change room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in mid-town Manhattan in 1996.
She has alleged that he defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type, and suggested she concocted the story to boost sales of her 2019 memoir.
The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
Ms Carroll took the witness stand for the third time on Monday, for a second day of cross-examination by Mr Tacopina, who argued that he should have been allowed to explore why she did not pursue security footage from the store and why she did not go to the police after the alleged incident.
“You can’t beat up on me because I didn’t scream,” Ms Carroll told him after insisting earlier that she was “not a screamer – I’m a fighter”.
In his mistrial request, Mr Tacopina also complained that the judge shut down his questioning when he pushed Mr Carroll to explain why she did not scream.
On Monday, Mr Tacopina pressed Ms Carroll about why she didn’t report the alleged attack to the police at the time.
Ms Carroll responded that women from her generation were not taught to report incidents like hers.
“The fact that I never went to the police is not surprising from someone my age,” she said.
“I would never call the police about something I was ashamed of.
“I was ashamed about what happened,” she said. “I thought it was my fault.”
A representative for Ms Carroll declined to comment to The Post.
This article originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission
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